The apple launchers were Trout’s father’s design. Two old broomsticks with the heads cut off. A nail driven into the cut end of each one, the head clipped off with wire cutters so what remained was a short metal spike. You impaled a crab apple on the spike, gripped the stick like a baseball bat, and threw the whole thing forward in a long swing that released the apple at the top of the arc.

If you did it right the apple left the nail clean and flew. Not a little. A long way. Father had demonstrated the first time with the easy efficiency of a man who had done similar things his whole life and saw no reason a boy shouldn’t learn them too. The apple had crossed the road and cleared the fence on the far side and disappeared into the Hendersons’ field.

Trout and Pee Wee had been launching apples ever since. The town had crab apple trees everywhere. Old ones, grown wild along fence rows and behind the church and along the edge of Fisher’s fields, full of small hard fruit that was no good for eating but was the right size and weight for a nail and a broomstick and a good swing. For months of the year there was ammunition everywhere you looked.

They had been at it for two summers.

The missionary family arrived in July. They stayed at Mrs. Ferguson’s house which was the largest house in town and which Mrs. Ferguson made available for visiting church families during their furlough. The family was from somewhere far enough away that the details had been summarized by the time they reached Trout. The father preached at the Sunday service. The mother wore her hair a specific way. The son was their age.

His name was Gerald.

Gerald was announced as Gerald. He attended everything that was happening and inserted himself into the operational structure of whatever the boys were doing with the confidence of someone who had grown up moving from town to town and knew how to enter existing situations without waiting for an invitation.

Trout showed him the apple launcher on the second day. This was a mistake.

Gerald had natural ability. That was the problem. He wasn’t learning the launcher the way most kids learned it, through failed attempts and gradually improving form. He picked it up immediately, adjusted his grip once, and started throwing with accuracy that neither Trout nor Pee Wee had achieved after two full summers of practice.

And he used it.

Not randomly. Specifically. He could hit a running target at thirty feet and had demonstrated this several times on both boys before they understood what was happening. The apple didn’t break skin. It raised a welt and stung in the specific way that made your eyes water without your permission and that you didn’t mention out loud because mentioning it was worse than the welt.

Pee Wee assessed the situation after the third hit.

He did not say genius.

The window happened on a Tuesday. They were playing near the church, which had two perfect crab apple trees on the side lot, and Pee Wee’s swing caught a bad angle and the apple left the nail wrong and hit the lower corner of the side window at the wrong speed and left a hairline fracture in the glass that caught the light if you knew where to look.

They looked at it.

“Not broke,” Pee Wee said.

“Cracked,” Trout said.

They looked at it some more.

Gerald told his mother that afternoon. His mother told Mrs. Ferguson. Mrs. Ferguson told Trout’s parents and Carol’s parents and apparently several other people in the twenty-two houses because by the next morning everyone knew about the window and the apple launchers and the welts and the general habit of launching apples across other people’s property.

Trout and Pee Wee were called in separately and chastised. They said nothing about the welts. Nothing about Gerald’s accuracy or his specific targeting of moving children. Nothing about the ratio of apples Gerald had launched compared to either of them which was not favorable to Gerald. They said nothing because saying it would sound like excuse-making and excuse-making was worse than the chastisement.

They took the chastisement.

Mrs. Ferguson told Trout’s mother that Gerald was an example of fine behavior. A missionary family’s child. Well-traveled. Well-mannered. An example for the local boys of what a young man could be with proper guidance. Trout’s mother received this information with the expression she used when she had more to say and had decided not to say it.

Trout’s father said they would not launch apples on church property or leave them in other people’s yards. This was the complete extent of the consequences.

Gerald remained an example of fine behavior.

The welts faded.

Summer Bible school ran for two weeks in August. It was held at the church, mornings only, with outdoor play time in the middle and the church mothers rotating supervision duty. Mrs. Ferguson organized it. Gerald’s mother helped. Trout’s mother was assigned Tuesday and Thursday.

On the third day Trout noticed Gerald’s apple launcher in the bushes beside the church door. He had hidden it there before Bible school. Trout looked at the launcher in the bushes. He looked at the two crab apple trees on the side lot. He looked at Pee Wee. Pee Wee had also noticed the launcher in the bushes.

Neither of them said anything.

They went inside for Bible school.

Outdoor play time was mid-morning. The church mothers gathered on the front steps in the shade with their coffee. Mrs. Ferguson. Gerald’s mother. Trout’s mother. Carol’s mother, who worried about most things and was present and attentive at all times. Carol’s father was not there. He was at the store. He would hear about it later.

The kids spread out across the church grounds.

Gerald retrieved his launcher from the bushes. He went around the far side of the church where the crab apple trees were and where the side lot opened up away from the front steps. Away from the mothers. Away from the supervision. Just the trees and the apples and a clear field.

Trout and Pee Wee stayed on the front side. They could hear him back there. The specific sound of a launcher working correctly, apples releasing clean off the nail, the brief arc and the impact against the fence boards on the far side.

Carol was playing near the corner of the church. Trout watched her.

He didn’t say anything.

Gerald came around the corner after her at a full run. He had a big crab apple loaded on the nail, the launcher back over his shoulder in full throwing position, chasing Carol around the side of the building the way he’d chased both boys across open fields all summer.

He was fast.

He was accurate.

And he came around that corner with complete operational commitment, full form, full speed, full intention, and found himself in front of every church mother in a twenty-two house radius who had been standing on those steps the entire time.

He did not see them until the apple was already gone.

It was a tremendous throw.

That was the thing nobody said afterward but that Trout and Pee Wee both understood completely. Whatever Gerald’s other qualities, he had genuine ability with the launcher and this particular throw demonstrated it fully. The apple left the nail at exactly the right moment, traveled the correct arc, and hit Carol in the left ear with the accuracy of someone who had been practicing on moving targets all summer.

Carol stumbled. At full speed, mid-stride, she went sideways and down the way people went down when something hit them in the ear, not a fall exactly, just a sudden rearrangement of direction that ended on the ground.

She was not seriously hurt.

She was also on the ground in front of her mother.

Carol’s mother did not require time to assess the situation. She crossed the distance between the steps and Gerald in a way that did not involve hesitation and she took him by one arm with the certainty of a woman who had been worrying about exactly this kind of thing all summer and had now been proven comprehensively correct.

She took the launcher out of his other hand. She walked him back to the steps and stood him in front of Mrs. Ferguson and his own mother with the launcher held out as evidence and Carol coming up behind them with one hand over her ear.

Gerald’s mother looked at the launcher. She looked at Gerald. She looked at Carol. She looked at Mrs. Ferguson.

Mrs. Ferguson looked at the launcher and then at Gerald with the expression of someone revising a previous assessment.

Nobody said anything for a moment.

Trout and Pee Wee watched from the side of the steps. Every kid at Bible school was watching. The church mothers were watching. Gerald stood in front of all of them with his apple launcher confiscated and Carol’s ear reddening beside him and his mother’s expression doing something complicated that had to do with being a missionary family on furlough and being financially supported by the churches you visited and having your son hit a running girl in the head with a crab apple in full view of the host family and half the congregation.

Trout’s mother would use the word mortified later in the retelling.

She used it accurately.

Trout’s father said nothing about Gerald when he heard. He had said what he had to say about apple launchers on church property and that was still the policy and that was sufficient.

Trout did not say anything either.

There was nothing to say that the afternoon hadn’t already said better.

Gerald’s family left two weeks later. Their furlough was ending. There were other churches to visit. Other towns. Other boys who would show them things and other windows they might or might not crack.

The morning they left Trout watched the car pull out from Mrs. Ferguson’s drive from the front porch. Pee Wee was sitting on the steps beside him. They watched the car reach the end of the road and turn and disappear past the Esso station.

“Good thrower,” Pee Wee said.

“Yeah,” Trout said.

They sat in the heat a while longer. The crab apple trees were full. The launchers were in the shed. The window was still cracked if you knew where to look. Nobody had fixed it yet.

.